


The Secret Keeper of LIberty Avenue

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon, Drama, Episode Related, Romance, Season/Series 05, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-05
Updated: 2005-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-27 09:03:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12077913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: If a lamp post on Liberty Avenue could tell its story, whatwould it say?





	The Secret Keeper of LIberty Avenue

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

On a street in Pittsburgh there was a lamp post. This in and of  
itself was hardly unusual. It was not an unusual lamp post by any  
means, no different from the one to its left or right. Its presence  
on the street had been there for as long as anyone could remember and  
for the most part it was ignored in favor of the bright colors,  
stores and good looking people who inhabited the street called  
Liberty Avenue. But the lamp post had a secret, lots of them  
actually, as this particular lamp post graced the entrance of the  
alley-way to Babylon, the center of the universe as far as the  
denizens of the area were concerned. It watched silently as people  
joked and argued, grew up and moved away, fell in love and back out  
of love, but it would never tell all the things it saw.

It was there the first time a lanky brunet came to the club. From the  
start the young man drew much attention with his smoldering good  
looks and his air of confidence. He was always headstrong, but in the  
beginning there had been a glimmer of hope, of wanting to be loved.  
But time passed, and the man became hardened and remote. The glimmer  
was gone, replaced with an aura of mystery. The lamp post watched as  
an ancient two-door Ford was replaced with a slick new Jeep, as the  
discount store clothes morphed into designer duds. It was impossible  
to count the number of men who had passed under the lamp post  
trailing behind the God of a man, convinced that they were luckier  
than anyone else, at least for the moment, and knowing that they were  
about to have the night of their life.

It was there the first night a young blond decided to explore the  
street for the first time. The kid was even younger than the other  
man had been on his first visit, naïve, a little scared, but  
enthralled by the possibilities that awaited him. The young man  
leaned against the lamp post and that was where the older man found  
him, the light glinting off his hair. To the casual observer this  
scene was like many played all over Liberty Avenue, but the lamp post  
knew that this one was different. It watched as the brunet and the  
blond came and went from the club, sometimes together, sometimes  
apart. If anyone had bothered to keep track they would have noticed  
that as time went by they were together more often than not.

Then for awhile the young man didn't pass under the lamp post, and  
the brunet seemed tired and defeated, his shoulders almost  
imperceptibly drooped under the weight of some hidden sorrow. But  
finally the young man returned. He was different that he had been on  
his first visit, to be sure, but the brunet didn't seem to care.  
There were many nights when the crowds inside the club were thick,  
and the pair would escape the mob for the protective glow of the  
light's circle. The older man would put his arm around the younger  
one, soothing the shakes that overcame his slight body. For awhile  
things were quiet and though the men kept coming together as usual,  
the lamp post saw that things were not right. The men were drifting  
further and further apart and all too often the young one looked sad.  
Then, one particularly busy and boisterous night, the lamp post saw  
an unfathomable sight. The blond was leaving with another man. The  
stranger tried to hold him and kiss him under the light, but the  
young man pulled away as if he knew that only one man could be kissed  
under that light.

For a long time the young man was a very infrequent visitor past the  
lamp post, and once again the older man was sullen and withdrawn,  
though he did his best to hide it. But one night the air around the  
club buzzed with electricity. Everyone seemed to know that something  
was about to happen or had already happened. Even the people who had  
not yet entered the club felt it. The lamp post heard excited  
whispers of "Are you sure?", "the twink and the stud" and something  
about a reunification. And when the golden pair emerged together late  
that night, everything seemed right again.

Time passed and the lamp post witnessed many things. There were the  
dark days when the joyful life on Liberty Avenue seemed about to end,  
and there was the raucous celebration the chilly night when the  
trouble was over. Sometimes the pair looked content. Sometimes the  
brunet looked sick and worn. The lamp post watched as the blond  
disappeared yet again and for awhile even the club was shuttered,  
until the brunet rescued it. The young man came back and with him  
returned the crowds. But the young man wasn't so young anymore and he  
wasn't so hopeful either, and it wasn't long before he was gone  
again.

However the blond was there, though the brunet was not, one night  
when the club was filled with people. They were all a little nervous  
perhaps but determined and defiant. The music and the laughter poured  
out onto the street to be enjoyed by anyone passing by, and if the  
lamp post knew that something was amiss, it gave no signs. It was  
there when an explosion, a giant ball of fire, rocked the club,  
sending glass and bits of metal and perhaps even blood against the  
post. It heard the hideous cacophony of frightened screams, gut-  
wrenching calls for loved ones, people desperately gasping for  
breath, and above all this, the unending shriek of sirens. In the  
midst of this chaos, the lamp post only briefly saw the brunet appear  
and consult with a soot stained woman before he plunged blindly into  
the smoldering inferno that was the club. He pulled the blond out  
with him when he came out again before disappearing into the night.

And the lamp post was there later that same unending night when the  
sirens had died away. The wounded who remained were too stunned to  
scream anymore and the whole scene was eerily hushed. Into this scene  
the brunet returned to the blond who had never left. They ran to each  
other under the very spot where they had met and held each other with  
a strength they didn't know they possessed. The brunet's mouth moved  
against the blonde's ear, his voice cracked with emotion and barely  
above a whisper. But the lamp post heard him, and all those who were  
there would later swear that the light seemed to burn a little  
brighter.


End file.
